\n\tToni Collette, Emily Blunt, Amy Poehler, even Ryan Reynolds in a Mint Mobile ad<\/a>, you name it \u2014 seemingly\u00a0no one was happy at the prospect that we\u2019d be seeing Norwood in our films and TV shows. SAG-AFTRA<\/a> slammed Norwood in a statement released in the midst of the uproar: \u201cIt has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we\u2019ve seen, audiences aren\u2019t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tNow, Van der Velden is setting the record straight. \u201cI was having to let the story run for a bit, but there was a lot of misinformation,\u201d says the Particle6 founder, who started out as an actress among the likes of Lily James and Daisy Ridley at a top performing arts school in the U.K. \u201cI totally sympathize with Hollywood being in a really tough spot at the moment, and actors thinking this is coming for their job. That\u2019s not what our plan is with Tilly at all.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOver three years, Van der Velden and her team at the London-based outfit have been building \u201ca universe\u201d of AI<\/a> characters \u2014 led by their \u201cEnglish rose,\u201d a brunette woman with big, brown eyes. And up until September, they believed the world had run in to synthetic characters before. \u201cWe followed the Lil Miquela<\/a> playbook, in a way,\u201d says Van der Velden, referencing the fictional character with over two million Instagram followers. \u201cBut I know why Tilly blew up a bit more than Lil Miquela,\u201d she continues. \u201cLil Miquela looks less real.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe looming threat of AI has continued to panic the film and TV industry, and regulations around the craft became a linchpin clause through the writers and actors strikes in 2023. Though AI\u2019s use in the industry already spans myriad visual effects tools, many still worry that AI could, one day, replace actors \u2014 or at least illegally use their likeness. All of a sudden, Tilly Norwood became emblematic of that fear.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI want to watch real actors emote \u2014 I enjoy that very much. I\u2019m an actor myself. I love the art,\u201d explains Van der Velden, \u201cbut I do want to prepare people that I think the tech will get there with good direction. And we\u2019ve done that. You can direct these computer-generated characters in a certain way, just like you can, in animation, direct Elsa [in Frozen].\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBelow, Van der Velden unpacks everything Particle6 is planning, including projects with some of the industry\u2019s top writers, directors and actors. She discusses how difficult the backlash around Tilly Norwood was, personally \u2014\u00a0\u201cthe police had to be notified\u201d \u2014\u00a0what source material was used to build the AI character and why she\u2019d love Tilly Norwood to stand for \u201ca moment of change in history:\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m really proud of, the conversation that she sparked. It\u2019s a conversation the industry needed to have.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tTilly Norwood<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParticle6<\/p>\n \n\tWhat was your initial reaction to the backlash and why do you think it was so strong?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I couldn\u2019t have predicted it, because in the U.K. we had released [Tilly Norwood] and there wasn\u2019t the same reaction at all. People were quite interested in it. I think it\u2019s because in the U.K., we\u2019ve had hardship in our industry for a long time, so we\u2019re a bit more open, maybe, to experimenting with new things. We\u2019ve also been instructed by the government to really accept this AI stuff. [British prime minister Keir Starmer has continuously repeated his ambition to make the U.K. one of the world\u2019s AI \u201csuperpowers.\u201d] So everyone has opened their mind to it.<\/p>\n \n\tBut I totally sympathize with Hollywood being in a really tough spot at the moment and actors thinking this is coming for their job. That\u2019s not what our plan is with Tilly at all. So there was a lot of misinformation there, and I can totally understand that with that misinformation, they freaked out. Also, I am in a bubble of all this new tech, [but] I remember the first moment I saw this tech \u2014\u00a0I was blown away. I was like, \u201cOh, no way.\u201d If you haven\u2019t had those moments, those little moments of going \u201cno way,\u201d then suddenly you see Tilly. It is very overwhelming.<\/p>\n \n\tHow did you cope with the outrage personally? Was it difficult?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN People send me all sorts of messages \u2014\u00a0some really heartfelt messages, being like, \u201cWhy are you doing this? This is an art form that I love.\u201d And we\u2019re trying to respond to every single one of them, because I also love this art form. I\u2019m not trying to take that away from anybody, right? I want to keep actors on screen, and I want to keep watching actors act. I see this as a completely new genre of creativity, like animation and computer-generated characters. But you also get comments that are really horrible, really horrible, so much so that the police had to be notified. I don\u2019t appreciate them as much. I do really appreciate the heartfelt messages, and we also have really positive messages. So there\u2019s three buckets.<\/p>\n \n\tIt all began with a report about agencies circling to sign Tilly. I\u2019m presuming you can\u2019t tell us which agencies those are?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN No, no. I can confirm that those conversations are still happening. We\u2019ve changed our position a little bit. I think agents are going to change as well. I\u2019m sure everyone in the whole world is having to adapt a little bit to this new era. And we\u2019re looking for an agent who\u2019s really keen on the AI characters and who\u2019s going to specialize in that.<\/p>\n \n\t[PUBLICIST] MICHELLE WALDRON But the first AI character was actually signed by CAA in 2020 [CGI influencer\u00a0Lil Miquela], so that\u2019s why we didn\u2019t expect this to blow up in the way that it did. Because it wasn\u2019t the first.<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I mean, we followed the Lil Miquela playbook, in a way. We thought that what she did was really cool, so we were trying to do that.<\/p>\n \n\tSo you believed AI characters were already out there?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN Well, [they are]. Lil\u2019s got millions of followers. She\u2019s got an agent. She goes on the red carpet. I know why Tilly blew up a bit more than Lil Miquela \u2014\u00a0Lil Miquela looks less real. So the positive about this backlash is that lots of people came to our site because they were like, \u201cWow, they\u2019re really creating premium stuff. And I suppose it sort of signaled that we stand for premium characters and content.<\/p>\n \n\tHave you found that interest in Tilly has increased or decreased since the uproar?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN Oh, massively increased. Enormously so. We\u2019ve had wonderful people reach out to us \u2014\u00a0critically acclaimed and award-winning writers, directors, actors.<\/p>\n \n\tWow \u2014\u00a0so no one said, \u201cListen, I was really interested, but seeing how the tide has turned, I\u2019m gonna pull out?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN Not a single one.<\/p>\n \n\tWhy is Tilly a British teenager?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN She isn\u2019t a teenager. She\u2019s 24! She shouldn\u2019t be [a teen], this character, but \u2026 with some characters, it might be beneficial for them to be AI from an ethical standpoint.<\/p>\n \n\tDo you mean children actors and animals, for example?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN [Nodding.] Dangerous situations. So, why is Tilly British? This is actually really important. I came to the U.K. when I was 14 to study musical theater at [U.K. performing arts school] Tring Park. And I studied with wonderful actors like Lily James and Daisy Ridley. I\u2019m very proud to have been trained in the U.K., creatively. I think it\u2019s a creative powerhouse in the world. And so I was basically future-proofing in my head, going, \u201cOK, well, the U.K. is this great creative powerhouse. We must be part of this next creative renaissance that\u2019s about to happen.\u201d And what\u2019s a huge export of Britain? It\u2019s British talent. So in this new AI genre, this new creative renaissance, we should also have British AI talent be a big part of that. I thought, \u201cOK, we\u2019re going to make a British actress first, and she should become the be all and end all in the AI genre of British AI actors.\u201d And then the process was really long, really tedious, in order to get to that final tidy look.<\/p>\n \n\tI played around for ages with text prompts and got very airbrushed images\u2026 I think we used about 10 different tools. We would up res, we changed the skin, we changed the freckles, we changed her hair. I think we did about 2000 iterations until we finally had one image that we were like, \u201cThat\u2019s it. That\u2019s her. That\u2019s who we want.\u201d We wanted her to resonate with a specific drama audience. We wanted her to resonate around the world and not look too specific. [We wanted her to] represent Britain and the mix that it is. There was a lot of thought that went into it, especially into the name as well: Tilly Norwood \u2014 we tried to find a name that nobody had in the world. So this is why Ryan Reynolds couldn\u2019t even find a Tilly Norwood. He could only find a Natalie Norwood for his Mint Mobile stunt that he did. Then there was a problem trying to keep her consistent, because the tech wasn\u2019t quite there once we found her. It\u2019s a long journey and a lot of human input and a lot of human work.<\/p>\n \n\tI think people were really curious to know about the source material for Tilly. Were there any real actors you were inspired by?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN No, not really. We were just going for that English rose character. I believe if you\u2019re going to make a digital twin of anyone, you need consent and you need fair compensation for that. So because we didn\u2019t want to breach anyone\u2019s likeness, we purposely made an original. That was the whole point. We do digital twins of people with explicit consent and fair compensation, right? This had to be something completely different, so we didn\u2019t want her to look like anyone.<\/p>\n \n\tHow many people does it take to build a synthetic character like Tilly?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I mean, you can do one in a second on [Google AI generator] Veo 3 if you wanted to. But the point \u2014 and I think this goes for the case for humanity, really \u2014\u00a0is to get something that will really resonate around the world, and to be as good as Tilly, it takes a lot of work. So I think about 15 people worked on Tilly over the years.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat AI tools do you use?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN Loads of different ones. We use the regular stuff: Veo 3, ChatGPT, threes or chat, GPT, DeepSeek, Nano Banana, Gemini. And then we have some proprietary tools as well that we build on top of the existing LLMs [Large Language Models].<\/p>\n \n\tWe didn\u2019t do any of the training either. We used third party tools. Just to explain about the training and copyright thing, because people think [Tilly\u2019s] based on people\u2019s likeness and it\u2019s trained on people. But then they should be compensated, right? So I think those third party tools need to pay for the data that they\u2019re training on. However, what worries me is that the actual creators and the people, because it\u2019s trained on the whole of humanity, billions [of people] \u2014 you, me, everyone\u2019s been put into that training data \u2014 we won\u2019t see any of that money, right? It\u2019s been trained on my acting stuff. So as much as I think those cases should be settled\u2026 What happens after that training is you are working with text in order to position pixels in a probabilistic position on a blank canvas. Unless your prompt says, \u201cMake her like this person,\u201d it\u2019s not pulling that data from the data set. It\u2019s pulling pixels as a probabilistic position of a brunette woman or whatever it is. So there\u2019s no direct likeness of anyone used in the creation of Tilly. That\u2019s really important, in my opinion.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tEline Van der Velden of Particle6 Productions.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParticle6<\/p>\n \n\tSo you have all the foundations right, a Tilly template, if you will. Now the work is done, you can just put her in any situation?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN Yeah.<\/p>\n \n\tI read elsewhere that you\u2019ve turned down offers where Tilly would be replacing a human actor. Can you elaborate on that decision?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN Yeah, that\u2019s really important as well. I was having to let the story run for a bit, but there was a lot of misinformation, which I hopefully am now addressing to everybody. We are trying to be a very ethical company using this new technology in Particle6. We believe in three genres: animation, traditional live action and AI genre, which will be a whole separate thing \u2014 similar to animation. In Particle6, we really want to help traditional film and TV shows to get their films made for less so that, say, if they\u2019re missing 20 or 30 percent of the budget, they can still go ahead because we can go through their shot list and we can say, \u201cOK, these establishing shots, these cutaways, we can do that with AI. These expensive shots that your writer was going to have to cross out, this explosion, we can still do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI really value [human actors]. We don\u2019t want to be replacing real actors unless there\u2019s a case for a digital twin situation in there, which would be done with the consent of the actor. Tilly was never meant to be replacing real actors in that genre. She was only meant to live in her own universe, which is what we\u2019re creating.<\/p>\n \n\tSo in an ideal world, she would be in a 100 percent AI show with an AI cast?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN Yeah, we call it a universe. But yes, we\u2019re building exactly that. We\u2019re building a universe where she will live. It\u2019s like an onion. You have your outer layer, which is her look. Now we\u2019re peeling off the layers, just like in any drama show, you would want a 3D character. So we\u2019re building her personality: her sense of humor and who she isn\u2019t. She might even be able to be a little bit autonomous, and people can talk to her.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat do you think art\u00a0gains from AI?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I would say there\u2019s three advantages to it. There is, firstly, that you can do it for 50 percent of the budget. You can help get more projects to green light, which means actually more jobs and reduced timeline. Secondly, it can reduce the carbon footprint massively, so up to 90 percent carbon footprint reduction if you do a scene with AI versus normal. That\u2019s huge. And then lastly, creatively, there\u2019s no boundaries, right?<\/p>\n \n\tThis first layer, we\u2019re going to just try and emulate what we shoot normally. But I think in the next few years, we will, as human beings, go beyond that, and we will make more creative things [when] we\u2019re not bound by what\u2019s physically possible on set. I think that will be a really, really cool creative renaissance era. I think the industry will get much bigger, and there\u2019ll be more jobs than ever before. And [it will] not take away [jobs]. That\u2019s never the aim of AI, in my opinion.<\/p>\n \n\tDo you not think we\u2019re in a very tricky period now where we\u2019ve not quite reached the stage of net gain when it comes to AI? People are still losing their jobs.<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I think in our industry, people are losing a lot of jobs because of the state the industry is in. I don\u2019t think AI is necessarily replacing those jobs. Yet, a lot of people are using AI for the first time this year. It\u2019s not got to the point yet where they\u2019re saying, \u201cOh, we\u2019re going to fire all these people in TV because of of AI.\u201d So I think that\u2019s not there yet but it will happen, which is why I\u2019m speaking out. Because I\u2019m here to help people through this transition, this tough period, because it is going to be a transition.<\/p>\n \n\tWe have to all upskill. There are lots of jobs if you become good at AI. So we are struggling to find people with the right skill set. And I think it\u2019s that \u2026 we need to all upskill, to go with the new wave of tech that we\u2019re going in and not get left behind. And I\u2019m here to help. We\u2019re training up lots of people in that, but we are using humans all along the way. There\u2019s lots of jobs, right? We\u2019re talking AI directors, AI DPs that are deciding the shots, AI production coordinators, AI production managers. There\u2019s so much humanity that\u2019s needed, otherwise it\u2019s crap.<\/p>\n \n\tIt is fascinating how extreme the reactions have been. What would you say to SAG-AFTRA who say Tilly can\u2019t emote like a human can? Maybe that, in her own genre, she\u2019s not meant to?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I agree with SAG-AFTRA that she\u2019s a computer-generated character, whether she can emote or not like a human can. So I would also say, yeah, we\u2019re not expecting her to right now. And I want to watch real actors emote \u2014 I enjoy that very much. I\u2019m an actor myself. I love the art, but I do want to prepare people that I think the tech will get there with good direction. And we\u2019ve done that. You can direct these computer-generated characters in a certain way, just like you can, in animation, direct Elsa [in Frozen].<\/p>\n \n\tWhat would you say to Ryan Reynolds or even Scarlett Johansson? I know you suggested you want Tilly to be the Scarlett Johansson of the AI genre. If they were on this call, what would you say to actors who are so against this technology?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I would say, \u201cDon\u2019t worry.\u201d And I\u2019m sure they\u2019re not worried. We\u2019re still going to want to watch Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds. We\u2019re still going to want to watch any level of actor. Instead of AI actors being in real film and TV, I think what might happen is that you\u2019ll get real actors wanting to be in the AI genre. We might do digital twins of them, so that they can also be an AI genre and get money from being in a different genre.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat would your dream first role for Tilly be?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I guess the role we\u2019re creating for her, [which is] a whole universe we\u2019re building around her. We\u2019re creating a whole story around her. But I would love her to stand for a moment of change in history. That\u2019s what I\u2019m really proud of, the conversation that she sparked. It\u2019s a conversation the industry needed to have. Even if she just represents that moment in time, a moment in time that we all had to go, \u201cRight, what is the ethical way forward with the tech that we\u2019re at? And can we do this? How are we going to embrace this from the creative industries point of view, as opposed to just being swept away by the tech industry? And how are we going to do it as a force for good?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t[We\u2019re] talking to producers and quite well-known companies about creating AI projects that Tilly could star in. We just can\u2019t talk about them yet because they\u2019re in development. They\u2019re not quite there, but yeah, coming soon. You\u2019re gonna see a lot of Tilly next year.<\/p>\n \n\tAre you able to give us a timeline for when we might see Tilly\u2019s first casting announcement?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN I wouldn\u2019t know when that might be, but we are going to relaunch her online. She\u2019s needed some time to reflect after what happened, and so she\u2019s ready to come back. She\u2019ll be online a lot in the coming year. <\/p>\n \n\tHow have you noticed the entertainment industry\u2019s amenability to change around AI since you founded Particle6?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN Not easy. It\u2019s been three years for us that we\u2019ve been in this new era. And I would say it\u2019s only since February that production companies are thinking about it. They\u2019re like, \u201cThere was a big change this year.\u201d I think people started to open up about it, and [Tilly] will have been another big moment, I think.<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s why I\u2019m trying not to do too much too soon, because it takes time for people to get their heads around it. I remember myself in the past three years, how long it took me to get my head around it. So, have patience with the tech as well, because it\u2019s also not perfect, and it\u2019s not there yet. I encourage everyone to play around with it. It\u2019s really fun, but yeah, then they realize it\u2019s quite hard to create anything good, and usually that\u2019s when they come to us.<\/p>\n \n\tHow are you funded?<\/p>\n \n\tVAN DER VELDEN We\u2019re currently completely self-funded, so we\u2019ve been a profitable company for the past 10 years.<\/p>\n \n\tAre you allowed to tell me about any other characters that you have in the works?<\/p>\n \n\tI think we are doing the basics of the other characters, but I think we would love to focus on Tilly and complete Tilly, because then we can unleash her into the world which would be really exciting. So the focus is on Tilly for now and get one done well.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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